In the parade there were characters from storybooks such as these ghostly and grumpy fellows from Dickens A Christmas Carol…
The Sugarplum Fairy and a toy soldier from the Nutcracker Suite..
And of course characters that represented their respective countries/cultural Christmas Traditions. In this image we have St. Nicholas from Greece in the front and next to him is an American Santa from the Civil War. Behind Santa is the tradition of Kwanzaa and behind her is St. Lucy from Sweden.
Behind St. Nicholas is La Befana , the Italian Christmas witch and behind her is, I believe, the Snow Queen holding the German flag.
After the parade and before they went to stroll along Main Street to meet and greet attendees, I took this photo of St. Nicholas, St. Lucy and Snegurochka the Snow Maiden from Russia.
These soldiers represent the Christmas Truce of 1914 from World War I (read more about that here) and sang their respective traditional holiday song in their native languages.
Mentioning singing, this quartet is the USO Evergreens who sang seasonal songs from the 40’s and 50’s.
The St. Charles Christmas Traditions event begins every year right after Thanksgiving and ends on Christmas Eve when everyone joins in for a big send off for Santa and his elves until next year. Mentioning Santa…
Next up – the big guy!
Teri 🎅🏻🤶
Images by T.Dashfield Photography 
After writing about St. Lucy and my own experience of bringing coffee and lussekattar to my family on her saint day, it was especially fun to see her in the parade. Those folks do know how to celebrate!
They take their traditions very seriously but in a fun way 🙂
Yultiders on the tracks. Superb costumes. Those folks go all out.
Indeed they do and we all love them for it. Thanks, Tim.
Wonderful costumes, amazing! What flag is that?
Which flag?
The blue flag with a cross.
That is the flag of Greece. Sorry so late in responding.